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The girl, who worked at the former Spice of India takeaway on Botchergate in 2009, said she was 16 at the time Azad Miah started texting her – sometimes 10 to 15 times a night.

Miah, 44, is on trial accused of eight counts of paying for the sexual services of a child and eight of inciting child prostitution. He has denied all the charges and has also pleaded not guilty to keeping a brothel at the Spice of India.

The girl said Miah, who also ran curry outlets in Cockermouth and Whitehaven, would text her asking her to sleep with him and asking how much she would charge.

She said that Miah wanted her to marry his son because he was “apparently an illegal immigrant”.

In a DVD interview played to Carlisle Crown Court, the girl said: “I just ignored his texts because I’m not a prostitute and I wouldn’t dare sell my body.”

The girl also told police that he would text and ask her why she didn’t love him.

She said: “I just kept saying no to him. I don’t want anything to do with him. He scares me he really does. I’m scared in case something happens to us.”

The girl said Miah had never touched her sexually but that he did make sexual comments to her about her breasts. She told her mum about the texts she had received.

Stephen Meadowcroft QC, for Miah, suggested that the girl was just adding to what other people had said and that Miah had not sent her any text messages that were inappropriate.

Another girl, giving evidence yesterday, said Miah would give her food and pop and ask for head massages when she went into his takeaway.

She said he would say: “Come, come, come out here a minute,” and asked her to go outside.

The girl said she did give him a head massage but didn’t tell her friends because it was “embarrassing”.

She said she would visit the takeaway most nights and the text messages from Miah started to change after she had given him a head massage.

She said he texted her and asked if she would sleep with him if he gave her money. “He said she would pay £70 or £90,” the girl said.

“I brushed it off, just thought it’s only a joke.”

The girl said he would pinch her bottom everytime she went in the shop.

“It was just weird him doing it,” she said.

The girl said Miah told her he asked people to sleep with him because “he didn’t get what he wanted at home”.

The girl said he used to ring numbers for girls that were advertised in the newspaper.

She said he once unbuttoned his trousers at the shop and she saw his boxer shorts. She said he asked if she wanted to touch him but she said: “No”.

The girl added she had never had sex with Miah and did not have any of the text messages he had sent her because they had been deleted from her phone.

She said on one occasion he had kept her phone and she had to ask a police community support officer to go into the takeaway to get it back for her. She said had shown the officer one of the text messages he had sent her.